Politics, spin and the public purse

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ON LEARNING that the High Court had rejected a challenge by the
Labor Party and the ACTU to the Federal Government's workplace
relations advertising campaign, Special Minister of State Eric
Abetz claimed the high ground. The Government had been proven
morally and legally correct, he said. It has not. The court ruled
that it was not appropriate for it to judge whether the campaign
should be paid for by taxpayers. This is fundamentally different
from pronouncing the expenditure to be morally correct. The
Government may now be free to use public money to promote aspects
of its agenda but that does not make it right to do so. It should
be mindful of the crucial distinction between legitimate
information campaigns and political advertising. When a political
party clearly articulates its policies before winning office and
subsequently has its legislation passed by Parliament, it is
entitled to use public money to assist citizens in understanding
how the new laws affect their lives. Although aspects of the
proposed industrial relations changes have been presented - and
rejected - in past parliamentary terms, the Coalition did not make
clear its intentions on this matter, in particular changes to
unfair dismissal laws, in the lead-up to last October's election.
As legislation still has not been presented, media campaigns are
likely to be based on ideology alone rather than fact.

When a government assumes that it has the right to use public
money for what is essentially political advertising, opportunities
for exploiting this are limitless. It is not difficult to imagine
that other potentially unpopular policies, such as proposed changes
to media laws, will be sold to the public through advertising
rather than comprehensive parliamentary debate. Yesterday's
announcement gives the Government free rein to extol the virtues of
its industrial relations policy in the media. The majority of the
seven judges awarded costs against the plaintiffs and left
unresolved the legitimacy of using taxpayers' money for government
advertising without parliamentary approval. The Age remains
concerned that this could set a dangerous precedent. As we have
previously noted, Australia has the weakest laws on this matter of
any comparable country. We again urge Australians to remind their
local members of John Howard's promise 10 years ago to ask the
auditor-general to establish guidelines for government
advertising.

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1127804606057-theage.com.auhttp://www.theage.com.au/news/editorial/politics-spin-and-the-public-purse/2005/09/29/1127804606057.htmltheage.com.auThe Age2005-09-30Politics, spin and the public purseOpinionOpinionEditorial